“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is promoting neither the two-state solution nor one state for the two people, but one state on Israeli and West Bank territories, only for the Jews,” writes Akiva Eldar.

Occupation/Human rights

“Almost all of Israel’s security and intelligence agencies are opposed to proposed Knesset legislation that would cut off tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority due to its payment of salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israel, a senior cabinet source told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.”

Mohammed Matry, a former political prisoner, talks about the prisoners’ strike in which he participated in the 1980s, Israel policy of forced feeding, and the basic demands of Palestinian prisoners today.

At a protest tent in the northern Arab-Israeli city of Nazareth, Joint (Arab) List chair Ayman Odeh said that his day-long fast was meant to bring attention to the “just demands” of the “political prisoners” for better conditions.

In a rare move, the army’s spokesperson lambasted the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem on Wednesday for publishing a video of an IDF officer guarding outside the a West Bank settlement, which he said was filmed purely to “manufacture an incident.”

Palestinian politics

Palestinians vote in municipal elections on Saturday, but only in the West Bank and not the Gaza Strip, illustrating the persistent inability of rival movements Fatah and Hamas to overcome deep divisions.